Customer Reviews

Sid Meier's Gettysburg (Jewel Case)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When first introduced this game must have been a revelation and joy to play. Technical development has since overtaken Gettysburg and gamers demand more from a product (especially graphically) than it offers. The first deficiency is apparent in scale. Units are absolutely puny and trying to click on flag bearers when a number of these get clustered is taxing. So long as lines stay static and divisions dont collide maintaining battle order is easy. Using the zoom feature helps somewhat but a cleverer AI would be best. It is vexing when units march into position and align themselves with back to the enemy. For this reason there is the ability to slow the game down or pause. There are three battle formations, not several (column formations are strictly for marching long distance or for speedy deployment). Nevertheless only two battle formations have any use, skirmish and line formation. The tactics are rudimentary, engage the enemy head on and use reserves to flank and rout them. As Wellington said, "They came on in the same old way and we beat them in the same old way." Despite the multitude of battle scenarios the game plays along this simple strategem. Strategists wont be intrigued by this predictability. Trying to manage the ultimate of battlefield tactics, encirclement, is not impossible. It would have been nice if there was a command button to assit this as divisions deploy in the standard thin Gray/Blue line. I've managed to force the surrender of a dozen brigades using this tactic but not without surprises. Often times encircled troops will simply ROUT right through your massed infantry. Routed troops suffer huge casualties but you dont see it reflected here. Often these units redeploy behind your lines and recapture victory locations. Now that's annoying and just plain unrealistic. Routed troops run AWAY from massed infantry not THROUGH them and once separated from their officers no longer present a cohesive threat.. There is a patch for this but I haven't seen it work in practice.Unfortunately the AI doesn't offer much assistance to guide your troops (it only functions optimally when deploying its own. When ordering an advance onto an enemy position many of your units will stop just out of firing range. If you don't babysit you can find units being battered when its neighbours on either side are just standing there bone idle. Most disappointing of all is Cavalry units. When marching they appear on horseback but when engaging the enemy they turn into regular infantry and cannot be distinguished from them. So much for the spectacle of Confederate Cavalry charges, poor Stonewall would turn in his grave. The game is quite fun and despite the deficiencies has moderate replayability but unless the game is overhauled it will fade into history and that would be a shame because it has huge potential.

This is one my favorite childhood games to play. Great RTS without any of the fuss of dealing with an economy. Just pure fighting. Great graphics considering the age of the game. You will move around brigades and artillery batteries while also dealing with your unit's generals ensuring they are close enough to inspire your troops but not out front to get killed. The game features terrain realistically, meaning holding the high ground is important and you can hide troops in wheat fields and woods. Game takes into account flanking fire as a major factor. There are multiple scenarios to play through from simple take the hill to a whole days worth of fighting.

This is one of the best battlefield sims available to-date. It really gives you a good idea of what the warfare of that time was like in terms of tactics. For those who complained about the UI... I don't know what you are talking about. This is one of the few games that is almost unbeatable on the higher levels.

I would not reccomend the follow-up game however, Antietam. It was done by another game studio and did not have the same easy to use interface.

This game is easy to learn and play. There is not a lot of depth in terms of units or strategic elements. I like the simplicity of the game but serious wargamers might find it too shallow.
Gameplay is marred by sound and video glitches, and the UI does not handle mouse clicks accurately, which means you often end up selecting units and issuing commands that you did not intend. All things considered, however, I kind of like the tactical simplicity of the game.

This game is a tad old and may look outdated but, it is still great. The sounds and sights are excellent and makes you feel as if you are there. Real-time adds so much to this game forcing you to make commands as your troops are getting pounded. A randomize factor lets you keep playing and playing never knowing the enemy's full strength. This a great game at a great price for any Civil War game player.

Also check out Sid's collection of Civil War games.

To put it simply, this game is the best I have ever played, next to Call to Power II. It is both challenging and fun, with endless surprises. The Day One: Meeting engagement scenario is incredible, and the graphics are well done.What I like best is the freedom it gives the player; You make all the descisions, and carry out orders. Sometimes that's a bit tricky in real-time, but I manage. The AI is great, and the stress factor is astroke of genious! If you love the civil war or other real-time games you must get this. The downside: too adictive. I can't stop playing!

Ausome game can't stop playing you don't have to take turns like some other civil war games and it is 3-d where you can see every unit it tells you how good the troops and generals are. Shows you where the cannon can shoot and anounces new men a charge a retreat almost anything many scenarios you can set it to many different diffuculty levels and your opponents personality aggresive cautios direct etc. can play historical or what might have happened example Longstreet's option insted of Pikket's charge shows you how close your men are to routing very realistic also.

The first thing you'll notice is that this game suffers from copious
technical problems. It won't run on XP without a patch. You can't
install the patch without installing the game first, but you can't
install the game first because even its installer won't run on XP
without the patch. Yes, this can be worked around. No, the vendor's
web site won't tell you how.

Once installed, the game's technical problems don't end. About half
of the time, at random, when a scenario starts you will find that
floating the mouse to the edge of the screen does not scroll the screen
like it should. Since that's the only way to scroll around the map in
this game, the game is unplayable in that state. The only fix is to exit
the program and re-start. Hope you saved the game before the scrolling
locked up, because otherwise your game is lost when you re-start.

The actual game play is difficult and cumbersome. Regiments sit on
top of each other, or hidden in the woods, or off forgotten at the
edge of the map, such that you can't see them or can't click on them
to move them. Action is slow, lots and lots of clicks are required,
and your regiments are always facing the wrong way (the one thing
they do on their own) or standing right next to the enemy but not
firing.

Finally, the difficulty of this game renders it unplayable, as if
it were playable otherwise. There are four difficulty levels. On
the easiest level, it's quite easy and not very compelling. On
the next harder level, it becomes impossible to win most battles.
Yes, impossible. After repeated plays, I am firmly convinced that
most of the battles are just unwinnable, and on the rest, a "marginal
victory" is the best that can be achieved. Ever. How can I be so
sure? Well, when four of your regiments are completely surrounding
the end of the flank of one of the enemy's regiments and still can't
route that enemy regiment, that's not a strategy question. That's
something technically wrong with the program.

I can't believe this game won awards when it came out. There is
really nothing about it to recommend. Sid Meier, you really let
loose a stinker.

Ok its obvious that this game was not made to be 100 percent historically accuarate. Aside from flanking, any 1800's strategy you think would apply almost gets tossed out the window. But over the past few years ive found this game to be one that easy to come back to again and again. You MUST find art patches to quadruple the size of the units and increase the flag size. Without that its not half as realistic. Its a good faced paced action strategy, with a random scenario creator that makes the game open ended. Yea, its got plenty of flaws. The units move too fast, more like game pieces than real units. But theres still alot of strategy involved, and for the price, you cant get a more exciting action civil war game anywhere. Bar none

First of all this is a great stratagy game of th Gettysburg battle. You can choose to be the Unoin or Confederacy and can choose on 4 different diffultcalty levals. You can to command your troops through to long, gruling, battle. But this has major problems. This has hardly any detail and the graphics absolutly stink. You have a hard time given commands. The high levals are too difulcult almost impossible to beat. You also lose very easy in this game. It is very slow and outdated. I hope they come out with a Gettysburg 2 or something similar because a great game like this deserves better. You should at least try out this game even if you are clueless about the Civil War.